Grass grooming reels are often used on reel mowers to facilitate and encourage the growth of healthy grass. Such grooming reels comprise a transversely extending reel shaft that rotates about a horizontal axis. The reel shaft has a plurality of laterally spaced, toothed blades spaced along the length thereof. The blades form one or more flights of blade tips that wind helically around the length of the shaft. As the grooming reel is rotated, the blade tips remove thatch and cut horizontal grass growth in advance of the grass cutting action provided by the cutting reel and bedknife of the reel mower. U.S. Pat. No. 4,494,365 to Lloyd discloses such a grass grooming reel.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,878,340 to Roy et al., which is owned by The Toro Company, the assignee of this invention, discloses a height adjuster for changing the height of the grooming reel relative to the ground. This height adjuster provides two distinct types of height adjustment. The first is a fine adjustment in which the height of the grooming reel is adjusted in relatively small, discrete increments to fine tune the position of the grooming reel relative to the ground. The second is a quick up/quick down adjustment to allow the user to move the grooming reel from a lowered grooming position closely adjacent the ground to a raised transport position considerably spaced above the ground. The quick up/quick down adjustment can be used without changing the setting provided by the fine adjustment.
While the height adjuster shown in the 340 patent works very well, it is not as intuitively obvious to use as one might wish. The top of the height adjuster comprises a large, rotary knob that the user grips and turns by hand to effect the fine adjustment of the grooming reel. However, to make the fine adjustment, the user must first lift the knob to disengage detents formed along a lower edge of the knob from a lock pin extending out beneath the knob. Unless the user is familiar with the operation of this height adjuster and/or has the user's manual immediately available, the need to first raise the knob to disengage the knob from the lock pin is not apparent. Thus, some users may not be able to immediately figure out how to make the fine adjustment.
In addition, the detents formed along the lower edge of the knob are not visible to a user standing above the knob and looking substantially straight down at the knob. Many users naturally rotate the knob by reaching down to grip and turn the knob from immediately above the knob. These users would not be able to simultaneously see the detents and the lock pin to be able to judge how far to rotate the knob unless they were also to bend over and get close enough to view the lower edge of the knob. This is inconvenient.
Instead of visually observing the detents and the lock pin, such users could leave the detents and lock pin partially engaged in an attempt to count the clicks. However, this runs counter to the user's natural tendency to pull up on the knob to its full extent to completely disengage the detents from the lock pin. In addition, even if one attempts to partially disengage the detents and the lock pin by only partially elevating the knob, it is difficult to find and maintain an elevated position of the knob where one can hear the clicks but the knob is still relatively easy to turn.
Moreover, the lock pin forms double duty as the handle that must be turned by the user to effect the quick up/quick down adjustment. The lock pin rides up a cam ramp to lift the rotary knob to perform the quick up phase of the adjustment and rides down the cam ramp to perform the quick down phase of the adjustment. Again, it is not immediately obvious to the user that this lock pin is what one uses to perform the quick up/quick down adjustment. In addition, even if the user understands the purpose of the lock pin, if the user attempts to leave the detents in the knob partially engaged with the lock pin to count clicks when making a fine adjustment, this partial engagement may be enough to also rotate the lock pin to begin a quick up/quick down adjustment. This is an undesirable aspect since the rotary knob plays a part in both the fine adjustment and the quick up/quick down adjustment.
Finally, the height adjuster of the 340 patent has no indicator to tell the user whether the grooming reel is in its lowered grooming position or its raised transport position. The lock pin to some extent forms such an indicator as it projects out to one side of the knob. However, when the grooming reel is in its lowered grooming position, the lock pin points upwardly and rearwardly away from the ground. When the grooming reel is in its raised transport position, the lock pin points forwardly and downwardly towards the ground.
Thus, to the extent the lock pin forms an indicator, it indicates the reverse of what a user would naturally expect from the indicator. When the lock pin is pointing upwardly away from the ground, the user would naturally think this indicates that the grooming reel is in its raised transport position. But, actually the grooming reel is in its lowered grooming position when the lock pin points upwardly. Similarly, when the lock pin points downwardly towards the ground, the grooming reel is in its raised transport position, the opposite of what the user would expect. Thus, the orientation of the lock pin in its two positions is confusing to the user since it actually indicates the reverse of the actual position of the grooming reel.
Accordingly, it would be an advance in the art to provide a height adjuster for a grass grooming reel that is more intuitively obvious to use and that includes an indicator that points up when the grooming reel is in its raised transport position and that points down when the grooming reel is in its lowered grooming position.